Extract from 'It All Started With Richie'

Amity's POV

I felt like smashing my head against the wall when I heard footsteps coming down the hall. Dinner was over and everyone was coming back. Grace was coming back.

I felt her presence before I saw her. The room was silent except for the soft breaths of everyone.

“Go and bathe guys,” I heard her say firmly, and in seconds, the other girls were rushing past me and into the connected bathroom.

“Amity, you’re making it so hard to like you.”

I lifted my head so fast that I felt a slight spike of nausea , “Same to you.”

“I’m your best friend!”

“You were my best friend.”

Grace took a deep breath and sat on my bed, crossing her legs.

“She ruined us, Amity.”

“You ruined us Grace,” I snapped, already over this conversation.

Grace’s eyes narrowed, “Are you going to sit there and deny that Richie stole you away from me?”`

 I met her eyes, “Not if you admit that you let her do it.”

Richelle Azalia Palmer barrelled into my life when I was only ten years old.

Grace, Richie and I were all from the same small town- Roselle. Grace and I were     childhood best friends and next door neighbours. Our mothers were best friends, our fathers were drinking buddies, everything was perfect.

Grace and I were sort of the ‘it’ girls at our school. Being rich and pretty enough made everyone practically worship the ground we walked on. Everyone wanted to sit next to us, everyone wanted to be invited to our birthday parties, everyone wanted to be our friend.

A few weeks into the start of sixth grade The Palmers moved back to Roselle. I had no idea who they were and had not a care in the world about their arrival.

The next morning at school, our Social Studies teacher asked us to get into groups to start working on a new project. I smiled towards Grace, ready to get up and start planning with her, when I was grabbed by the elbow.

I looked up, startled, and saw one of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen. Bouncy blonde curls, lightly freckled nose, dazzling blue eyes. I let her drag me to the other side of the room.

“My name is Richie,” she said finally, taking a seat and grinning up at me, “you're Amity right? From what I can tell, you’re really smart.”

I blinked, when had this girl joined our class? Where had she even come from? How had I not noticed her before? Then it hit me.

“Palmer!” I blurted, “you’re The Palmer’s child, you just moved here!”

She giggled, then reached forward to pat my head, “See? I knew you were smart.”

Soon, two other children joined our group, and in the end, we ended up getting the highest grade. Everyone assumed it was because of my intelligence, but as someone who was a part of the group, I can guarantee you it was because of Richie’s creativity.

I would have never thought of splitting plastic bottles in half and painting them blue to look like waves. I would have never thought of sprinkling glitter on tan clay to make it look like sand. Only Richie thought of things like that.

Grace was mad at me because I had done the project in a separate group, and I was mad at myself too. Not once while I was doing that project had I thought of Grace. I was too busy laughing at Richie’s jokes and wishing she had moved here sooner.

That was the moment Grace and I started to fall apart.

After working on the project, Richie and I started to hang out a lot. We had so much in common- We both loved gymnastics but weren’t very good, we both thought that peanut butter and banana sandwiches were one of the highest delicacies and we both adored colours like pink and green, though I like pink more and she preferred green.

I tried to invite Grace to many of Richie and I’s playdates but she always refused. You see, Richie was not the most popular at school. She was loud, lacked a lot of ladylike mannerisms and liked things like running and gardening. Gosh, Richie loved gardening.

She could name every plant we passed no matter where we went. She knew what season they flourished in, which were poisonous and which weren’t, which were useful and which were useless.

“I’m going to be a Gardener when I grow up,” she’d always say with a large grin, “just like my late Aunt Solar.”

“I wish she was dead like her late Aunt Solar,” Grace muttered to me one day, and I almost reeled over from shock.

After that day I stopped inviting Grace to our hangouts and Grace stopped talking to me at school.

Richie was constantly gossiped about, berated by teachers, looked down upon. She couldn't care less.

It was around that time that I decided Richie was the strongest person I knew. She was always true to herself and I admired her greatly for it. The same could not be said about Grace.

 “You left me for her. I tried so hard to be your friend-”

“I always tried to include you!” I protested, “I invited you to every outing, party, trip- you ALWAYS said no!”

“I wanted to be your friend, not her friend!”

“And I wanted to be friends with both of you,” I looked away, “you made that impossible.”

I heard her sit next to me on the floor  and listened intently for her next words.

“I was trying to save you…”

I rolled my eyes, “There you go, trying to make her sound like a disease-!”

“She might as well be! The moment she came she plagued your mind and took you away-!”

“I was right there!”

“That wasn’t you!”

“Um...guys?”

“WHAT?!” we both snapped, turning towards a frightened looking Courtney. Her hair was wet and her cheeks were flushed pink, her hands held the white towel she wore for dear life.

“I was wondering if any of you saw my jasmine soap, but it seems like you guys are busy so..”

“No, we’re done here,” Grace rose to her feet, not sparing me a second glance, “nobody saw your damn jasmine soap. Go back into the bathroom, you’re dripping all over the floor.”

I gave Courtney the kindest smile I could muster, “No, I haven’t seen it.”

She nodded quickly and rushed back into the bathroom. I looked after her, the energy draining from me swiftly. Who needed a bath? I could just take one tomorrow morning.

I lay on my side and tried to clear my head. The floor was not so bad, maybe I would stay here a while.